THE LAST SEPTEMBER
Reviewed by Harvey Karten Trimark Pictures Director: Deborah Warner Writer: John Banville Cast: Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Jane Birkin, Fiona Shaw, Lambert Wilson, David Tennant, Richard Roxburgh, Keeley Hawes, Gary Lydon, Jonathan Slinger
The troubles in Northern Ireland--the conflict between the British troops who are stationed in two Irish counties and the IRA forces which long to drive them out--are an obvious source of high drama for film makers. Consider Terry George's 1996 emotion-charged "Some Mother's Son," a true-life story of a hunger strike staged by a jailed IRA member in the early 1980s, starring Helen Mirren as a prisoner's mother who is forced to become involved. Think also of the more passionate "In the Name of the Father," Jim Sheridan's 1993 release about a young and innocent ne'er- do-well in Belfast accused by British police of a terrorist bombing.
If we judge movies about the 20th Century conflict between British and Irish according to the directors' passion, "The Last September" wouldn't have a chance. But veteran theater chief Deborah Warner has other things going for her in her debut at the helm of a film. The first is that she has adopted Elizabeth Bowen's novel to the screen, a work of fiction dealing with an episode that has received surprisingly little attention given the interest in the centuries' old conflict. The second is that she has utilized Slawomir Idziak's camera in a creative way to stylize quite a number of shots to show the historical continuity of the family she portrays. To her credit, Warner has effectively translated an essentially literary work into a cinematic vision--but one which is not without drawbacks.
"The Last September" is a 1920's Chekhovian tale of an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family headed by Sir Richard Naylor (Michael Gambon) and his wife Lady Myra (Maggie Smith). =
They own a lavish estate known as Danielstown in County Cork in an area surrounded by relatively poor merchants and are protected by elements of the British army led by Captain Gerald Colthurst (David Tennant). Though the Naylors consider themselves Irish for having lived in that country for most of their lives, to outward appearances they are absolutely British. Among their guests are a 19-year-old orphaned niece, Lois Farquar (Keeley Hawes) and the mischievous 30-year-old Marda Norton (Fiona Shaw) who has had various affairs and is debating whether to marry an English stockbroker whom she does not love. =
While the story ostensibly centers on Sir Richard and Lady Myra, Warner's principal concern is the youthful Lois, a high- spirited woman who is eager to see what love is all about and is attracted to a roguish Irish terrorist, Peter Connolly (Gary Lydon)--who is hiding out in an unused barn of the estate. =
Warner allows us to observe the idiosyncratic owners of the estate who are given to alternately cryptic and witty statements about love and politics. In one quietly humorous exchange, Sir Richard gives instructions to the clueless captain--who is in love with a not-too-interested Lois--the captain hanging on every utterance but not understanding a word. In a similar exchange between the captain and Lady Myra, the woman of the estate advises the soldier in no uncertain terms that Lois would never marry a man so obviously beneath her station. (Maggie Smith is, as she was in "Tea With Mussolini," a lady who is above it all, one who has seen everything and would insist on her afternoon tea even if she were in the midst of a battlefield.) The real surprise of the picture is Keeley Hawes, who had complained that she is always cast as an older woman but now gets her chance to portray an adolescent who acts as a 19-year-old woman would act in just about any country in the West.
The political situation is never too far from the polite, if acerbic, discussions. We become privy to the execution of a black-and-tan (British soldier) by a terrorist and the subsequent liquidation of yet another British soldier by a fighter determined to drive the English out of their country. =
We cannot help feeling sad for the Naylors and their entire household, who are aware--like the characters in Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard"--that a lacy era is ending and a way of life is to be forsaken. The pace is awfully slow but to keep an audience involved, the camera plays tricks that often seem employed for the sake of copying the Merchant-Ivory genre. As Lois looks through her telescope, the audience gets a closeup of her eye and catches what she observes as she slowly focuses and spins her instrument about the landscape. In another scene we witness the going-on in a room of the estate through the keyhole. "The Last September" is so ethereal that Warner appears at times to challenge her viewers to sit without fidgeting with the promise of coming away with a better understanding of a fading epoch.
Rated R. Running Time: 103 minutes. (C) 2000 Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews